“The report said that the level of emotional abuse of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by religious and lay staff was “disturbing” and that the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children.”

The report, that runs to thousands of pages, outlined a harrowing account of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted on young people who attended schools and institutions from 1940 onwards.

It found that corporal punishment was “pervasive, severe, arbitrary and unpredictable” in the institutions where “children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.

The article also observed:

Sexual abuse was “endemic in boys institutions”, involving such abuse by some staff members and some older boys. Sexual abuse “was not systematic in girls’ schools”, though girls were subjected to predatory sexual abuse by male employees (of the institutions) or visitors or in outside placements.

Sounds like men abused the boys, and men abused the girls.

The Executive Summary of the report is here. The report itself can be read here.

One Response to “The report said that the level of emotional abuse of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by religious and lay staff was “disturbing” and that the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children.”

I am relieved the church is finally being exposed for this sickening, systematic abuse. It is utterly shameful it’s taken them so long to own up. My mother was sent away to a convent school during WWII when Belfast was the target of bombing raids. She suffered some pretty vicious physical and emotional abuse.